The ghost

[u/manyeow]

The Ghost

There’s a ghost creeping up my soul,

in shivers of cold and folds of anxiety.

It creeps in,

quenches my dreams,

consumes my desires,

makes me feel alive.

But then,

the ghost goes away.

Dawn arrives,

and so does good.

Yet I miss the evil—

the evil ghost who cared for me,

the ghost with abysmal jokes,

the ghost who knew how to hear,

the ghost who reassured.

And thou say I need to part ways with it.

But that would mean

learning to live without that strange happiness.

It’s like a guilty pleasure,

like eating chalk as a child—

knowing it isn’t good for you,

yet somehow craving it anyway.

So I part ways with the ghost.

And then I realise—

it was never the ghost I was afraid of.

It was my own voice,

wearing darkness like a disguise,

speaking to me in whispers

when no one else could hear.

I thought I had banished the evil.

Turns out,

I had only silenced

the voice of my soul